Seattle-based ""Zillow"":http://www.zillow.com announced on Wednesday plans to launch co-branded real estate Web sites with 180 newspapers nationwide.
The _Tampa Tribune_ and 100 newspapers published by Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. are among the first newspaper real estate sites to be powered by Zillow's search technology, beginning April 1st. Additional papers, including the _Richmond Times-Dispatch _and _Winston-Salem Journal_, will launch sites in the coming months.
Through their relationship with Zillow, the newspapers' Web sites will now include Zillow's search functionality, whereby users can enter any home address, neighborhood, or locality and find home values, recently sold homes, homes for sale, open house listings, and local market data, on a co-branded version of Zillow.com. Visitors to the co-branded sites can also access all of Zillow's real estate community content, mortgage rates, and information from ""Zillow Mortgage Marketplace"":http://www.zillow.com/mortgage/.
According to Zillow, the launch of these co-branded Web sites extends the scope of the company's Newspaper Consortium formed in November 2007 with 11 major newspaper publishers. Through this consortium, the newspaper's sales teams sell featured listings and premiere advertising inventory on Zillow.com to local real estate advertisers.
Lloyd Frink, Zillow's president, commented, ""This next step of the Zillow Newspaper Consortium brings Zillow's unique local content and data to millions of online newspaper visitors searching for real estate information. As our newspaper partners evolve and build out online content, we're excited to be a key part of the process.""
Donna Barrett, CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. (CNHI), added, ""The combination of Zillow's cutting-edge real estate technology with CNHI's deep community relationships will help us serve local readers and businesses in exciting new ways. This relationship with Zillow will help cement our status as the deepest, richest source of local information in our markets.""
The Zillow Newspaper Consortium of 11 major publishing companies includes Media General, Inc.; Hearst Newspapers; The E.W. Scripps Company; MediaNews Group; Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc; Morris Communications Company; and Philadelphia Media Holdings. The first round of 101 co-branded sites are launching today, with additional sites launching throughout 2009.
Kirk Read, president of Media General's interactive business, said, ""Together with Zillow, we are able to give our consumers a wealth of local real estate data, information and news about the city and neighborhoods in which they live or are interested in living.""
Zillow's real estate content includes data and property values on more than 88 million U.S. homes, 3.3 million listed homes for sale, and updated mortgage information and quotes from the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. The Zillow.com Web site boasts 8.8 million unique visitors in March 2009, representing 70 percent traffic growth year-over-year.